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Monday, 18 August 2008

Monkey - Journey to the West - The Album

Following on from the success of the Monkey: Journey to the West opera in Covent Garden, Damon Albarn has released the score from the opera on CD today. On first listen, it's like nothing I've heard before.

There are touches of Gorillaz style sound effects throughout the score and the occasional mandarin vocalist. Having not seen the opera, I can only imagine how impressive the visuals would have been when coupled with the music. As with Gorillaz albums, the Monkey album also contains some fantastic artwork by Jamie Hewlett, some of which is shown above.

You can also by a limited edition Vinyl Boxset of the album which contains a 68 page illustrated booklet of the production and a large Jamie Hewlett art poster.